That said, I do think you're right about yard sizes capping out in practice. The Terrans can count to 10 (and probably will, because I like the Newgrange), but nobody else ever will. Maybe I should just cap the cost at $50B per level - it won't affect the game thus far, but it'll make it less punishing down the line.

Maybe? At a cap of 50B per level, I might go past Lvl 6. Then again, I have no idea what my budget is going to be in another 10-20 turns - the more money you have, the more sense yard upgrades make.

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It's not just the engine mass that's an issue - max accel in a fast ship is already crushing, and getting up to 5-6g is going to pose tremendous engineering challenges. If anything, I might want to make big engines even more mass-intensive.

I really don't think the engineering challenges are all that grand, in a game where materials technology is as insanely good as it is in Battletech. Fighters can literally bounce off the ground and keep flying. Also, Safe thrust 5 and 6 ships are tough enough to make good as it is, I'd hate to foreclose that design space entirely.

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This makes sense to me. I never much liked that rule, tbh. Naturally, the guy with a 2/3 fleet is most in favour of it, but there's logic there. If I do that, I might also mess with rules like maximum door count. No promises, though.

Yeah, I only really noticed it because I was building slow ships to maximize firepower, and it struck me how strange it was. Especially in a setting where in general slow things have more armor.

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I've more or less been doing this already. The rounding hasn't been getting factored in. Actually, if I wanted to mess around in this space with the opportunities afforded to us by a narrative-based game, why are we limiting thrust to round numbers at all? A cruising accel of 1.2g(i.e., 2.4 thrust) should be perfectly possible. That'd loosen up design space somewhat and make ships less samey, and I don't think it'd mess with the construction tool much. Obviously, that couldn't work with any third-party construction tools, because MML and HMA would not build ships like that. Given that you're one who's been reluctant to use the Google Docs spreadsheet due to technical issues, would that be a problem?

It would seem easy enough to let the design tool, of whatever sort, accept fractional input for safe thrust.

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This is a bit like #1 to me. Also, jump ranges over 30 LY make most of the mapping tools I've used to plan operations stop being useful, which would be annoying.

I was just thinking that we have shorter ranged drives (primitive drives), and we know at some point theres research in 'super' drives. But if it makes your administrative overhead go up more than it helps the game, then its a gonner. The juice always has to be worth the squeeze.

In an attempt to clean up the Master Sheet a touch, [snip] if it bugs people.

All my Trojans are currently MK2's, no new builds. I might build another MK2 in the near future. I won't be using the Trojan MK1 anymore, so you can remove that from my listing.

Also is there a way to show everybody their Faction specific fighter speed and such like the warship spread? Just so we can look at the specs at a glance. I can see Heavy weapons as the built in, and Light as more if it's a Bomber role. Since all can carry Bombs and Cap-Missiles, only a few are dedicated Bombers.

Thanks,TT

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Khan, Clan Iron DolphinAzeroth PocketverseThat is, if true tanker doesn't beat me to it. He makes truly evil units. ~ Col.Hengist on 31 May 2013TT, we know you are the master of nasty O0 ~ Fletch on 22 June 2013If I'm attacking you, conventional wisom says to bring 3x your force. I want extra insurance, so I'll bring 4 for every 1 of what you have ~ Tai Dai Cultist on 21 April 2016Me: Would you rather fight my Epithymía Thanátou from the Whispers of Blake?Nav_Alpha: That THING... that is horrid ~ Nav_Alpha on 10 October 2016

I'd like to play and real life has simplified enough that I can do so.

My understanding is that the Taurian Concordat and the Rim Worlds Republic are the viable choices. If Taurian Concordat, I'd like to alter the terms to end payments, returning all but 2 of the Kutai. The Rim Worlds Republic is doomed by default, but it might be fun to try and nip the clans in the bud. I'm flexible either way, but maybe RWR sounds more interesting?

I'd like to play and real life has simplified enough that I can do so.

My understanding is that the Taurian Concordat and the Rim Worlds Republic are the viable choices. If Taurian Concordat, I'd like to alter the terms to end payments, returning all but 2 of the Kutai. The Rim Worlds Republic is doomed by default, but it might be fun to try and nip the clans in the bud. I'm flexible either way, but maybe RWR sounds more interesting?

We are already seeing butterflies. I dont think its safe to assume that the TC or the RWR are doomed. Both of their dates with destiny are a long way off, after all.

My gut feeling is that the RWR is better situated for long term growth, but the TC is likely to be more exciting.

Note to all: I may have spent most of my free time this weekend playing Battletech(the HBS computer game) instead of writing about it, so the turn will be delayed somewhat.

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Kiviar: That is a far more drastic change than I'm comfortable with. If we were doing blank-sheet-of-paper design I'd change around cost calculations quite a lot, but once we're already into the game, it's way too much.

Maingunnery: Yeah, Invasion-era tech happening during the Star League makes sense. I already stole some small amounts of it(e.g., it was all LBX autocannons, not just the LB-10X), but I may include a bit more. Good call.

Marcus: Materials science is good, but humans are as squishy as ever. As I understand it, going much above 4g means acceleration couches and G-suits, which severely limits operations - a standard chair won't cut it any more. As for primitive drives that expand up to 30LY over time, it might have been a good idea if it happened at the start, but not now.

Truetanker: Faction-specific fighters are fluff only, in practice. You can tell me about your doctrine(e.g., do you prefer massed anti-fleet strikes, or to focus on enemy fighters and let your heavies kill the enemy ships?), but the craft used to implement that doctrine are abstracted away. It'd be too much to keep track of otherwise.

Lagrange: Great, good to have you! Did you want to start your tenure this turn, or wait until I've resolved the turn? I'm cool either way. For now, the Taurians are in a bit of a siege mentality - the FS has other concerns, but the TC doesn't necessarily realize that right now. That's why they went a bit crazy buying Kutais. If you want to unload them, you can talk to Smegish about taking them back if he wants, or if that's not agreeable I'll let you unload them to assorted minor periphery nations(who will assume the same repayment schedule you're on right now, so Smegish won't suffer loss of cashflow). If you'd prefer the RWR, they're trying to be a cutting-edge inspirational example(the "Renaissance" moniker for their recharge stations was the most obvious example there - I've actually gone to an Italian/Mediterranean naming scheme for them as a result of that, and because it fit the ruler names), both because it seems to fit the canon and because they need to grow a heck of a lot bigger to be able to pull off Amaris' little stunt in the 2760s.

Kiviar: The Reunification War forced all Periphery realms into the Star League, but it didn't end them. The TC is still a going concern in the 3100s in canon. You'll all suffer setbacks aplenty over time, but I won't end player-controlled realms before the game ends(unless the player agrees to it).

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Also, a side note regarding population, inspired by a PM. IRL population was about 1B in 1800, 1.7B in 1900(+70%), and 6.1B in 2000(+259%). A bunch of that 20th century jump was longevity growth, which won't recur, so the pace of population growth should be expected to slow down. IRL projections, which are based on us never leaving Earth, show about 10.9B in 2100(+79%). So if we assume a long-run population growth rate of about 70% per century, we'll be in the right ballpark. That results in a total Inner Sphere population of about 51B in 2400, of which over half is Terran - each of your realms might have a total of about 4 billion people right now, spread across a couple hundred worlds, so even a fairly important planet might only have the same population as IRL Canada at this point.

If we project this forward to 2800, around the time the 1SW got nasty, that's a total human population getting close to half a trillion. The TH is still the single biggest, but it'll have much less than half, perhaps 150B total. Each of the great houses will be closer to 50B at that point, or ten times larger than they are right now. That's the era when Luthien is a heavily industrialized world of 7 billion, not today.

IC: We, the Marian Hegemony, wouldn't mind buy those ugly things off your hands. We'll even pay handsomely for them if you s choose. A fellow Peripherian Realm indeed.

TT

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Khan, Clan Iron DolphinAzeroth PocketverseThat is, if true tanker doesn't beat me to it. He makes truly evil units. ~ Col.Hengist on 31 May 2013TT, we know you are the master of nasty O0 ~ Fletch on 22 June 2013If I'm attacking you, conventional wisom says to bring 3x your force. I want extra insurance, so I'll bring 4 for every 1 of what you have ~ Tai Dai Cultist on 21 April 2016Me: Would you rather fight my Epithymía Thanátou from the Whispers of Blake?Nav_Alpha: That THING... that is horrid ~ Nav_Alpha on 10 October 2016

TC seems more aligned with the strategy that I have in mind (... which is different from everyone else's so far...), so let's go with that. I'll try to get a turn together tonight under the assumption that something works out with the Kutais.

A minor detail: I'm not entirely clear on the house rules for capitol missiles carried by ASF. What is the limit on the ASF's speed profile? And the tonnage of an ASF required to carry a capitol missile?

Speed is UNCHANGED and you carry 1 Capital Missile fighter. Think Fire and Forget. Most likely a Barracuda for Anti-Ship / Fighter and your Bombers would carry either dedicated bomb bay and / or White Shark for the Exocet ability.

Otherwise there generic, though you could create your own, but 5 Million each

TT

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Khan, Clan Iron DolphinAzeroth PocketverseThat is, if true tanker doesn't beat me to it. He makes truly evil units. ~ Col.Hengist on 31 May 2013TT, we know you are the master of nasty O0 ~ Fletch on 22 June 2013If I'm attacking you, conventional wisom says to bring 3x your force. I want extra insurance, so I'll bring 4 for every 1 of what you have ~ Tai Dai Cultist on 21 April 2016Me: Would you rather fight my Epithymía Thanátou from the Whispers of Blake?Nav_Alpha: That THING... that is horrid ~ Nav_Alpha on 10 October 2016

TC seems more aligned with the strategy that I have in mind (... which is different from everyone else's so far...), so let's go with that. I'll try to get a turn together tonight under the assumption that something works out with the Kutais.

A minor detail: I'm not entirely clear on the house rules for capitol missiles carried by ASF. What is the limit on the ASF's speed profile? And the tonnage of an ASF required to carry a capitol missile?

Sounds good. I prefer the RWR as my own realm - I won't say no to a new player, but I was hoping you'd pick the TC, so good choice

Canonical ASF rules give them one bomb hardpoint per 5 tons, and that stays unchanged. The house rule we're using here is that those hardpoints can also be used to carry missiles, at one hardpoint per 5 tons of missile(so a Barracuda takes 6, a White Shark 8, and a Killer Whale 10). That basically means each fighter can carry its own weight in missiles. There's canon rules for loss of maneuverability when carrying bombs(-1 safe thrust per 5 bombs carried, round up), but that hits heavy units too hard and light ones not hard enough, so I've abstracted it a bit. A fully loaded fighter is pushing twice the mass around that it normally would be, so it's got half the acceleration, as well as being substantially more sluggish in maneuver(both because of inertia and because of structural risks with that heavy load attached).

Also note that, as Smegish says, we're using generic fighters. I tend to assume that the average mass of a fighter is 50-60 tons, so a typical launch averages out to roughly one ship-killer or two anti-fighter missiles per fighter. I figure the assault ASFs will balance out against the light ones, and it'll work out to that as an average. It's a bit fuzzy - I'll raise or lower the number somewhat between fights - but that's roughly what you can expect.

Kiviar: The Reunification War forced all Periphery realms into the Star League, but it didn't end them. The TC is still a going concern in the 3100s in canon. You'll all suffer setbacks aplenty over time, but I won't end player-controlled realms before the game ends(unless the player agrees to it).

The TC survived the reunification wars but was never able to recover from them until the jihad era. So, insofar as the game is concerned they cease to be a viable power after the 2580s.

TC seems more aligned with the strategy that I have in mind (... which is different from everyone else's so far...)

Im really looking forward to it!

TC is a tough takeover, as it has had a player, gone NPC, got kicked around by the Fed Suns, and is now back in business. Im quite curious to see what your doing with it.

I've got a standing offer to FS, CC, TC, and MH for use of my spare yard space at say about cost +10-20%. If your not happy with Kutai, and want something I've got prototyped, I'll build. If you want something that wont fit in your yard space, and can carry the prototype costs, I might lower the parkup in exchange for design access for my own future use.

The reality of the crushing debt payments for the Kutai fleet created a cold war within naval command. The FS hawks instigated the purchase and adamantly defended it as necessary in the face of FS aggression. Those opposing the deal pointed out the unsuitability of a Kutai for a main wall of battle, often leaping to the extreme claim that they were useless in view of the reports coming out of Kentares. The Kutai faction was in control of fleet command at the outset leaving the younger generation barraging their seniors with simulations, proposals, and counterproposals.

As often happens in these cases, the matter was settled by retirement of the old guard and the promotion of admiral Lena Wilhight. In a compromise with the old guard, 2 of the Kutai's were kept for escort, scout, and antipiracy role against minor periphery powers where they remain a formidable force. Lena then conducted a deep review of many year's worth of proposals and simulations settling on some unusual conclusions.

The most essential conclusion is that the Taurian Concordat needed an entirely new and radically more force efficient naval doctrine to effectively compete with major powers operating at an order of magnitude more scale. One proposal fit this---labeled the "Rube Goldberg Warship" by the FS Hawks it was ridiculed widely 5 years before, yet it fit the criteria.

The Rube Goldberg Warship isn't a warship. Instead, it's a space station, a dropship, and a jumpship designed to mimic a warship. The space station is a scaledown of the Marathon defense stations which defended Taurus from the FS aggressors.

The Taurus I design includes 15 NL45s massed in a single arc to do deeply penetrating damage. A single hit by the focused fire of the NL bay can wipe out minor warships and seriously threaten even the largest warships. The NL bay is nevertheless a secondary weapon compared to 192 aerospace bays for over-the-horizon combat. The tactical doctrine here is simultaneous massed strikes of an enormous number of missiles as observed in many modern combats. The aerospace bays are loaded with ASF carrying twin Barracudas with the cargo bay carrying a reload of both Barracudas and White Sharks. The large fuel reserve can be used to reload the ASF as well.

Rethinking the importance of missile defense after many battles were decided by missile waves, a defense-in-depth strategy was developed. The last line of this defense is 60 machine guns per arc mounted on the Taurus I itself. The first line of defense is provided by an array of 12 Crestbreaker point defense smallcraft designed to coordinate with each other and the Taurus I to provide an order of magnitude more point defense (up to 708 machine guns), breaking missile waves apart.

CrewOfficers 1Enlisted/Non-rated 2Bay Personnel 140The David smallcraft doctrine uses aggressive tactics. Often, they will intermingle with an ASF wave and use the confusion of a mass missile strike to board surviving enemy ships. Sometimes they will use a 5.5g burn to slip around enemy ASF formations for an unsupported attack. The doctrine here is on the border of foolhardy, but not completely so---they will flee if there is no plausible path to victory.

The Taurus I space station is designed for long occupancy with a large 250m gravdeck and quarters for all bay personnel giving an endurance of about a half year.

The primary disadvantage of a space station in combat is a lack of maneuverability. After careful study, it was determined that a space station can be built to withstand approximately a half-G of thrust, about 5 times what a station-keeping drive generates. A dropship with a Naval Tug can provide this ability, and thus 'The Tick' was born.

CrewOfficers 3Enlisted/Non-rated 2Gunners 11The Tick can generate a bone-crushing 8.5Gs of force which it projects through it's massive naval tug to move a Taurus I at about 0.5G making it maneuverable at combat time scales and capable of planetary movement in reasonable-if-sedate timescales. (Side note: it's thrust 0.75/1 according to the rules.) The Taurus I is also designed to carry the Tick as cargo. The process of loading and unloading the Tick is slow. (Side note: using the cargo rules) The tick also complements the point defense of whatever it's attached to with 12 MG's in each arc.

The other obvious drawback of a space station is a lack of interstellar maneuverability which is addressed via the Mother jumpyard.

NumberEquipment and BaysMassDoors100,000Naval Repair Unpreassurized2,500234Cargo, Standard341The Mother is hideously vulnerable in any combat situation so the standard policy is to never expose it to combat. Aside from yardspace, it provides a direct mechanism to transport space stations from one stellar system to another. The primary implication of this is that space stations can be built in one system and transported to another rather than built on site. In any combat zone, the Mother jumps deep into the Oort cloud, well beyond detection ranges, unload it's Taurus I space station, and then charges off the fusion drive (with fuel supplements from the Taurus I). The large fuel reserve of the Taurus I allows for about 20 deep black jumps (side note: assuming 10 Mother Burn-days/jump). The Taurus I also carries significant spare parts to keep both it and Mother in running order over a long time period.

While Mother's stay out of range of observation, the primary role of the Taurus I is as carriers both of ASF and boarding marines. Secondarily the NL45's form a potent backup weapon, but hopefully all combat can take place beyond direct engagement range. The Taurus I is ortillery capable in support of ground troops.

There are deep tradeoffs associated with the Rube Goldberg Warship, but it can provide a powerful battle force for a small fraction of the price of a true warship fleet.

Alsadius: we'll need two rulings here. 1) How long does it take to enter or disembark from a Naval Yard? This is unspecified in the rules as far as I know. 2) How do you want to rule that explicitly created yardspace works? According to the rules, a level 1 unpressurized yard costs 6.25B when built into a space station. This obviously doesn't include necessary ancillary factories which have an unspecified cost approximated at 3.75B if we want everything to add up to 10B. Nevertheless, 6.25B is significantly more expensive than the 5B of creating a second yard in the same system. Is the idea that space stations cost half price if the yard creating them is onsite? Anyways, what additional costs need to be paid to use the Mother as a functional 100K-ton yard rather than merely a fancy repair bay?

You weren't kidding about a different doctrine. I was a bit surprised by the choice of fighter bays in an orbital station - the planet is usually better as a fighter base for an orbital fortress - until I realized that it wouldn't be staying in orbit.

FYI, the reason I chose the NL-55 on every armed station I've built so far is that it has as long a range as any capital weapon. The NL-35 has less range, so it's more vulnerable to ships attacking it from long range. It's your choice, of course, and the NL-35 is a lot cheaper. But I wanted to make sure you'd considered it.

You weren't kidding about a different doctrine. I was a bit surprised by the choice of fighter bays in an orbital station - the planet is usually better as a fighter base for an orbital fortress - until I realized that it wouldn't be staying in orbit.

FYI, the reason I chose the NL-55 on every armed station I've built so far is that it has as long a range as any capital weapon. The NL-35 has less range, so it's more vulnerable to ships attacking it from long range. It's your choice, of course, and the NL-35 is a lot cheaper. But I wanted to make sure you'd considered it.

Good point---I had intended extreme range and forgot. I tweaked the Taurus I to use 15 NL45s rather than 12 NL55s since the TC is so price conscious.

W.r.t. the question I asked at the end, my internal estimate:1) It takes something like a half-day to disembark from a naval yard and perhaps 2 days to enter a naval yard---significantly slower than any other form of dock/undock.2) Perhaps half the abstract price of a yard is the naval yard equipment itself while the other half is the associated quarters/factories/etc which feed the yard. The factor of 2 discount for secondary yards in the same system is due to space station construction in an existing yard rather than building on site. Operating under those assumptions, 2B is required to build the associated quarters/factories/etc... for a 100K ton yard, or half that if construction is in an existing yard.

I tend to assume that the average mass of a fighter is 50-60 tons, so a typical launch averages out to roughly one ship-killer or two anti-fighter missiles per fighter.

On Ship-Killers vs. Anti-Fighter Missiles, and weapon damage more generally.

In TT Battletech, armor is ablative and nothing more - there is little like the real world idea of armor sufficient to be immune to a given weapon (try firing 14" Naval Rifles at Yamato's turret facings... good luck!), nor of weapons sufficiently powerful to blow through armor in a single shot and inflict major damage. (The same 14" Naval Rifle will do terrible things to a DD).

In TT Battletech, a Barracuda deals 2 damage, a Killer Whale 4. Therefore, 2 Barracuda deals the exact same damage and has the exact same effect on target as 1 Killer whale (save that all missiles get an innate TAC chance.. the Barracuda on a worse roll, but with two rolls, my recollection is that 2 Barracudas on average dealt slightly more crits than a single Killer Whale and about the same as a White Shark - but I'm away from my notes today)

Some things said/implied here suggest that for this game it doesn't EXACTLY work that way, like your discussion of 'anti fighter' and 'anti ship' missiles. This suggests that, for example, getting hit with 4 NAC 10 shells has a different effect on the target than getting hit with one NAC 40 shot. (Setting aside for a moment the threshold/critical rules - we will all soon be beyond the ability of a single weapon, or even a 'max damage of 60 bay', to hit the 10% of armor threshold).

Is this the case? Does a NAC/40 hit have more destructive effect than 4 NAC/10s? If so, it would lend some punch (heh) to the big NACs.. but at the same time, NACs are already the default best gun in space? Is a single Killer Whale hit more damaging than 2 Barracuda?

Alsadius: we'll need two rulings here. 1) How long does it take to enter or disembark from a Naval Yard? This is unspecified in the rules as far as I know.

Right, I never answered those.

1) I suppose it depends why you're in dock. In the battle of Irian, the FWL hid a functional ship inside a dock, where it exited and engaged in the fight. That should be pretty quick, because you're only inside the dock physically - it'll take a while to leave, because you don't want your exhaust plume frying the dock, but that's on the order of minutes. After that, you're in space and can move normally.

If you're in dock for actual repairs, conversely, it's a much more onerous process - you'll probably be shut down and have numerous permanent connections to the dockyard. I'd estimate it at around the same time as a RL dockyard - I don't know what that is, and a quick Google doesn't tell me, but as a total amateur I'll guess a day. And of course, if you're leaving in a circumstance where that timeline matters, it's probably a half-finished ship leaving in a surprised situation, so it'll usually be in less than perfect condition.

2) How do you want to rule that explicitly created yardspace works? According to the rules, a level 1 unpressurized yard costs 6.25B when built into a space station. This obviously doesn't include necessary ancillary factories which have an unspecified cost approximated at 3.75B if we want everything to add up to 10B. Nevertheless, 6.25B is significantly more expensive than the 5B of creating a second yard in the same system. Is the idea that space stations cost half price if the yard creating them is onsite? Anyways, what additional costs need to be paid to use the Mother as a functional 100K-ton yard rather than merely a fancy repair bay?

I didn't look at the detailed cost calculations for yard space before I set up those prices. I figured there would be economies of scale(otherwise, players would just build all their new yards in new systems to reduce vulnerability to attack), and wanted to keep the numbers simple. The $10B for a new yard covers the costs of the yard space itself as well as all the supporting factories - a NAC/40 and a compact KF drive don't come out of the same facilities as an AC/2 and a fusion plant. The $5B for an additional yard covers the yard space itself and related support structures, plus the marginal increases to facility size needed to keep the space operational. Also, remember that bigger yards cost far more than the implied cost of the space alone - it'd be $62.5B for a level 10 pressurized yard in a station under canon rules, but the second level 10 yard in a system costs $275B to build up from scratch. Overall, yard space almost always works out to be much more expensive than the simple docking berth, and I'm willing to accept the oddity at level 1 to keep everything simple.

If you want to make yard space in a custom-designed station, it's repair space only. Things like the Newgrange should be able to exist, but they can't make new ships from scratch.

On Ship-Killers vs. Anti-Fighter Missiles, and weapon damage more generally.

In TT Battletech, armor is ablative and nothing more - there is little like the real world idea of armor sufficient to be immune to a given weapon (try firing 14" Naval Rifles at Yamato's turret facings... good luck!), nor of weapons sufficiently powerful to blow through armor in a single shot and inflict major damage. (The same 14" Naval Rifle will do terrible things to a DD).

In TT Battletech, a Barracuda deals 2 damage, a Killer Whale 4. Therefore, 2 Barracuda deals the exact same damage and has the exact same effect on target as 1 Killer whale (save that all missiles get an innate TAC chance.. the Barracuda on a worse roll, but with two rolls, my recollection is that 2 Barracudas on average dealt slightly more crits than a single Killer Whale and about the same as a White Shark - but I'm away from my notes today)

Some things said/implied here suggest that for this game it doesn't EXACTLY work that way, like your discussion of 'anti fighter' and 'anti ship' missiles. This suggests that, for example, getting hit with 4 NAC 10 shells has a different effect on the target than getting hit with one NAC 40 shot. (Setting aside for a moment the threshold/critical rules - we will all soon be beyond the ability of a single weapon, or even a 'max damage of 60 bay', to hit the 10% of armor threshold).

Is this the case? Does a NAC/40 hit have more destructive effect than 4 NAC/10s? If so, it would lend some punch (heh) to the big NACs.. but at the same time, NACs are already the default best gun in space? Is a single Killer Whale hit more damaging than 2 Barracuda?

The world player base wonders.

BT has a little bit of immunity in the rules - ferro-lamellor mech armour is immune to 1-damage shots, for example(and this is explicitly intended to be the case, not a bug). And there's some sense of AP weapons as well, like AP autocannon ammo, or any big gun against low-BAR primitive or commercial armour. But yes, 99% of the time it's pure ablation. And so we get the oddity where infantry armed with 19th century revolvers can kill an Atlas within an hour or so. *shrug*

I haven't messed with the direct-fire weapons that I can recall. Those do the damage that they do, and I haven't felt any need to alter them. A change that big I would tell you about. Missiles, OTOH, I've needed to play with a bit so that Barracudas aren't the be-all-end-all. Thus far I've probably made Barracudas more effective against fighters than I should, judging by missiles fired/fighters killed ratios, but they don't get used much to shoot ships, because they're a bit weak there. Remember that Barracudas do about half the damage of the smallest direct-fire capital weapon(the NL-35), and less than some Mech-sized weapons of later eras, so they're down in the range where resistance is still a real concern. A NAC/10 is big enough to threshold most active ships under canon rules, and lasers will naturally operate in ablative fashion, so that's not a real concern for either one.

Against a really light WarShip, the Barracuda is perfectly effective, but against a Crucis it'll mostly bounce off. It'll do better than fighter cannons, but for hitting a hard target, a KW or WS will do noticeably more effective damage than 2x Barracuda. (Also, 2x Barracuda is 60 tons, whereas a KW is 50, so that hurts you too).

Okay, so its an effect specific to the Barracuda to prevent the barracuda's accuracy advantages from rendering the other missile classes moot. Probably best to tone down mentally its crit chance, as well, for the same reasons.

As the guy who first said 'Barracuda are teh awesome' and put them on everything, I am totally okay with this.

Suppose the FS invades one of the TC systems and we need to transport a Taurus I from one system to another in order to apply sufficient force. To do that, we need to: 1) have or transport the Taurus I to a jump point, 2) Load the Tick into the Taurus I, 3) Load the Taurus I into a Mother 4) Jump 5) unload the Taurus I 6) unload the Tick 7) transport in system. I have a handle on the timing for all the steps except 3.

I didn't look at the detailed cost calculations for yard space before I set up those prices. I figured there would be economies of scale(otherwise, players would just build all their new yards in new systems to reduce vulnerability to attack), and wanted to keep the numbers simple. The $10B for a new yard covers the costs of the yard space itself as well as all the supporting factories - a NAC/40 and a compact KF drive don't come out of the same facilities as an AC/2 and a fusion plant. The $5B for an additional yard covers the yard space itself and related support structures, plus the marginal increases to facility size needed to keep the space operational. Also, remember that bigger yards cost far more than the implied cost of the space alone - it'd be $62.5B for a level 10 pressurized yard in a station under canon rules, but the second level 10 yard in a system costs $275B to build up from scratch. Overall, yard space almost always works out to be much more expensive than the simple docking berth, and I'm willing to accept the oddity at level 1 to keep everything simple.

I'm not quite following what the 'oddity at level 1' is. Are you thinking of linear vs quadratic cost structure? The cost of a level 10 pressurized yard is $25B raw or $125B with the x5 space station multiplier. That's well in excess of the cost of the $100B upgrade from level 9 to 10, but less than the cumulative cost of $550B for instantiation and costs of 10B+20B+...100B. Overall, I guess I was assuming that big yards are basically always unpressurized since the cost is so incredibly prohibitive for pressurized yards.

If you want to make yard space in a custom-designed station, it's repair space only. Things like the Newgrange should be able to exist, but they can't make new ships from scratch.

It entirely makes sense that it's repair only by default.

Perhaps it helps to expand on where the question is coming from a bit. 1) Is there an economic advantage to be had from build-and-deploy over build-in-place? The latter is the standard for space stations and, if I understand correctly, the in game reason why space stations have an x5 cost multiplier rather than the x1.25 of a jumpship or the x2 of a warship. If we build the space station in a yard (taking up yard space in doing so), is it cheaper?2) Related, TC has severe yard space limitations and yet finds itself considering building additional explicit yard space in the Mother design for other reasons. Can the ancillary industries (engines, NLs, armor, structure, etc...) be built up to support the use of a Mother as a fully capable yard? And if so, what is the cost for the ancillary industries of an ancillary level .4 yard?

Saying 'no' to both is entirely fine and certainly simpler. Saying 'yes' to the first might give TC an industry with significant economic value while 'yes' to 2 would make it somewhat easier to realize that industry. in essence, I want to settle the dual-use implications for future planning purposes.

Okay, I think I see what you're getting at (I misunderstood how the Mother works). Simply entering or exiting a bay is fast. But to make things safe in a jump you need to secure them, and securing a 100,000 ton station is substantially more work than merely driving it into a repair bay. Your 12 hour time is probably more accurate there - it's not a full entry into the yard's hands, but it'll be on the same order of magnitude. Un-securing it will also be a major process, but probably somewhat faster overall.

The oddity at level 1 is that you can build a complete 250,000 ton shipyard for $5B when the yard space alone is $6.25B. If you look at cumulative costs, that's not an issue at any higher level, but it is at level 1.

1) My impression was that the x5 cost multiplier was because ships have most of their cost embedded in the KF drive, and if you could build stations without needing to pay for a KF drive, they'd be too cheap. So, FASAnomics being what it is, you jack up the cost multiplier on stations so they're not too cheap. I haven't felt any great need to change this as of yet - stations are still pretty cheap, and most of the expensive ones have been built in shipyard worlds so far, so it'd seem unfair to give a substantial discount. The spreadsheet also isn't set up to handle it. So that's a no.

2) I thought of limiting stations by yard space like ships are limited, but I couldn't think of any sensible way to do so that wasn't a logistical nightmare for a game like this. As a result, I just decided to handwave it and allow stations to be built freely. You'll rarely ever want to put much of a weight of stations in a system that lacks for heavy industry, so I figure that the light recharge stations can be made of pre-fab parts flown in from your factory worlds, and the heavy military stations will mostly only exist in systems that can build them from scratch. So in the interests of simplicity, we'll say that the support works for your Taurus shipyards can produce the necessary components for any plausible level of station construction.

Regarding the yard space, however, it seems both complex and unnecessary - the amount of value you'd be likely to get from it is probably lower than the benefit of just buying yard space from a bigger nation. The DC and CC both have a vested interest in you being well-equipped to kill Feddies, so they'll probably give you a good rate on shipyard space. If you want this then I could probably make it work, but I'm a bit skeptical of its importance for the moment.

As an observer, and one without yardships or seeing one come along any time soon...

I'm torn. I love the idea of having yardships be mobile secret construction yards, likely at some multiplier in cost (because they aren't dedicated hard yards with the efficiency thereof). Maybe x2 or x3.

At the same time, I'm worried about someone throwing out a cheap yardship with a 2.5MT yard and then starting to build Leviathan's Older Brother, as even at a very high cost multiplier for construction, it will be cheap many times over compared to yards.

But if they cannot build ships from the ground up, and turns are 10 years with maybe one engagement between any two powers in that time, what other advantages does a yardship bring?

But if they cannot build ships from the ground up, and turns are 10 years with maybe one engagement between any two powers in that time, what other advantages does a yardship bring?

Fixing one of your ships with a busted K-F drive is one obvious scenario. The FWL almost found themselves in want of a yardship, before their Phalanx died supporting ground troops. The other advantage is improved maintenance on any deep-strike missions. You haven't started playing this game yet, but circa 1SW(or sooner, if you guys jump ahead of canon with your doctrines) there'll be fleets sneaking back to capital worlds to kill shipyards, and a yardship moving along with a fleet like that could be very helpful for ensuring everyone arrives safe and sound.

Fixing one of your ships with a busted K-F drive is one obvious scenario. The FWL almost found themselves in want of a yardship, before their Phalanx died supporting ground troops. The other advantage is improved maintenance on any deep-strike missions. You haven't started playing this game yet, but circa 1SW(or sooner, if you guys jump ahead of canon with your doctrines) there'll be fleets sneaking back to capital worlds to kill shipyards, and a yardship moving along with a fleet like that could be very helpful for ensuring everyone arrives safe and sound.

Fair. I'm still focused on being comfortable winning the battle before I budget for the things necessary to go play conquistador (troop transports, colliers, and repair ships), so I may not be thinking in those terms. This may be penny-wise-pound-foolish on my part, because a series of 2-3 warship freighters, along with the same number of massive carriage invasion transports and a big ole repair ship would greatly complicated defensive doctrine on the other side of the border - especially as, with sufficient bunkerage, nothing prevents such a force from wandering right up to your capital 'through the black', and the only warning you would have before they came over the hyperwall with claws bared is the fact that none of your spies have seen the enemy fleet in a few months.

Amusing note - in intel terms, watching where the logistical tail was would matter more in some ways than watching the pointy teeth.. if the teeth dont have tail near them, they are defensive. (Exception of course being things like Heracles - which could go haring off anywhere in space unescorted without warning)